This blog describes Metatime in the Posthuman experience, drawn from Sir Isaac Newton's secret work on the future end of times, a tract in which he described Histories of Things to Come. His hidden papers on the occult were auctioned to two private buyers in 1936 at Sotheby's, but were not available for public research until the 1990s.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

The Guardianrecently reported on a time capsule which preserves a French soldier's room exactly as he left it before he left for the front during the First World War. It haunts the viewer and brings back to life a European domestic world that would be forever transformed by the war. The family stipulated that the room should not be changed for 500 years:

The name of dragoons officer Hubert Rochereau is commemorated on a
war memorial in Bélâbre, his native village in central France, along
with those of other young men who lost their lives in the first world
war.

But Rochereau also has a much more poignant and exceptional memorial:
his room in a large family house in the village has been preserved with
his belongings for almost 100 years since his death in Belgium.

A lace bedspread is still on the bed, adorned with photographs and
Rochereau’s feathered helmet. His moth-eaten military jacket hangs
limply on a hanger. His chair, tucked under his desk, faces the window
in the room where he was born on 10 October 1896.

He died in an English field ambulance on 26 April 1918, a day after
being wounded during fighting for control of the village of Loker, in
Belgium. The village was in allied hands for much of the war but changed
hands several times between 25 and 30 April, and was finally recaptured
by French forces four days after Rochereau’s death.

The parents of the young officer kept his room exactly as it was the
day he left for the battlefront. When they decided to move in 1935, they
stipulated in the sale that Rochereau’s room should not be changed for
500 years.

About Me

Welcome to my blog, dedicated to the aporia, anomie, mysteries, and nervous tensions of the turn of the Millennium. I'm a writer and academic, trained in the field of history. These are my histories of things that define the spirit of our times. This blog also goes beyond historians' visions of the past, and examines how metatime and time are perceived in other media and disciplines, between generations, and in high and pop culture.